by | Nov 14, 2023 12:17 pm | Comments (5)
Laura Glesby Photo
The view from inside the Pride Center's future headquarters, formerly Artspace.
For a decade, the New Haven Pride Center has operated out of a buzz-to-enter, windowless basement, unmarked and invisible to pedestrians in the Ninth Square.
Now, the community center is coming out — into a much larger, glass-walled, ground-floor home, where a pride flag is already brightening the front window.
by | Oct 26, 2023 8:37 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Miguel Loor.
Three musical acts brought calming sounds on a warm fall evening to Cafe Nine on the corner of State and Crown, leaving smiles, deep breaths, and camaraderie in their wake.
by | Oct 23, 2023 9:45 am | Comments (3)
Laura Glesby Photos
Drag performer Judah brings outer space to Orange Street at Sunday's Pride fest.
Luis Rios and Bubbles: “You’re a legend.”
In a flurry of Pride flags, handmade crafts, and pedestrians-turned-dancers that filled the end of Orange Street in the Ninth Square, Luis Rios caught a glimpse of Tia Waters and had to say hello.
“Excuse me, is your name Bubbles?” he asked. “You’re a legend.”
by | Oct 18, 2023 8:32 am | Comments (0)
Paul Wolfer Photo
Chaser Eight.
Saturday night’s Cafe Nine show — starring New Haven-area rock ‘n’ roll favorites Chaser Eight, pop-punk Gen X‑ers The Dollyrots, and Maryland-based newcomers Kings of The Wild Things — brought a much-needed serotonin boost to the week’s end. Concertgoers drove hours, from places as far away as Syracuse, N.Y. and parts of Wisconsin, to join New Haveners in packing the nightclub, leaving little room between the front door and the stage.
by | Sep 26, 2023 11:56 am | Comments (0)
Lisa Gray photo
Buffalo Nichols at Cafe 9.
Saturday night was a great night for blues. As rain pattered on the windows of Cafe Nine on the corner of Crown and State Streets in New Haven, a small and diverse crowd of music lovers sipped beers and munched pretzels as they listened to Buffalo Nichols give a lesson in the music of musicians like Robert Johnson and B.B. King. That lesson, in time, made the joint jump, with a few couples two-stepping in front of the stage.
by | Sep 23, 2023 4:03 pm | Comments (9)
Thomas Breen photo
New Haven Pride Center's Hope Chávez, Juancarlos Soto, and Laura Boccadoro, after Saturday's bomb threat: "We're not going anywhere."
An emailed bomb threat sent to city police and a New Haven Pride Center employee Saturday afternoon temporarily shuttered a Ninth Square block that was supposed to be hosting a Pride Week-closing celebration — but which had been canceled the day before because of expected inclement weather.
Police searched the LGBTQ+ services nonprofit’s headquarters, found no explosives, and cleared the building, and are now investigating the email threat as a potential hate crime.
Continue reading ‘Bomb Threat Targets Pride Center During Pride Week’
by | Sep 1, 2023 8:49 am | Comments (4)
Nora Grace-Flood photo
Gotham Citi Cafe at 84 Orange St.
A Ninth Square club has been temporarily banned from serving alcohol after cops caught someone who was underaged drinking a Dirty Shirley on scene — and subsequently accused the nightclub’s owners of four counts of selling booze to minors amid months’ worth of other alleged violations.
Continue reading ‘State Suspends Gotham Citi's Liquor Permit’
by | Aug 24, 2023 9:09 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Cabins, East!
On Wednesday three rock bands — Cabins, East!, Pyramid Rose Band, and headliner Laney Jones — brought loud guitars, driving drums, strong vocals, and a lot of heart to a rapturous audience at Cafe Nine, in a night that hearkened back to pre-pandemic days of casual abandon while adding a healthy dose of post-pandemic compassion and care.
by | Aug 17, 2023 8:33 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Lindley Creek.
From the stage, Joe Delillo of Audrey Mae, the regional bluegrass band opening for touring national act Lindley Creek, asked what could have been a dangerous question: “Who in here is not having a good time?” The capacity crowd at Cafe Nine responded with dead silence. Delillo smiled. “Good,” he said, to cheers. It was a joyful moment that embodied a night of bluegrass raucous enough to bring people out in droves to the club on State and Crown for a late summer acoustic throwdown.
Continue reading ‘Bluegrass Bands Strum Out The Sounds Of Summer’
by | Aug 16, 2023 8:21 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Lucy's Neighbor.
Three New Haven-based bands took the stage at Cafe Nine on the corner of State and Crown Tuesday night to share new songs, try out new ideas, and ease into the kind of playing musicians can do when they have a common history and chemistry.
by | Jul 28, 2023 3:28 pm | Comments (10)
Laura Glesby photo
Liam Brennan and Juancarlos Soto in the Pride Center.
A ballot petition in hand, Liam Brennan waited for the buzzer outside 84 Orange St., walked through the lobby of an architecture firm, and descended the elevator to the basement home of the New Haven Pride Center.
He emerged three hours later one signature closer to his goal of getting onto September’s Democratic mayoral primary ballot — and a clearer picture of the community center’s efforts to move above ground at a time marked by rampant transphobic legislation across the country.
Continue reading ‘Petitioning Brennan Hears Pride Center Pitch’
by | Jul 21, 2023 2:26 pm | Comments (0)
Laura Glesby Photo
Laura and Karen Boccadoro at the Pride Center.
Before she became a regular volunteer at the New Haven Pride Center — before she started teaching her friends about non-binary pronouns or exposing her preschool students to the many different forms a family can take — Karen Boccadoro learned that her 19-year-old kid was gay. And she didn’t know what to think.
by | Jul 7, 2023 9:17 am | Comments (0)
Chuck Roth, a.k.a. watergh0st, held the late-night audience in suspense as his hands flew across the fretboard of his electric guitar. The music Roth made fell somewhere else, part of and yet separate from rock, jazz, folk. The genre it might belong to didn’t matter. It mattered only that the music connected.
by | Jun 22, 2023 9:00 am | Comments (1)
Brian Slattery photos
Old projectors and such, up for grabs ...
... at Artspace's sale on Wednesday.
The pumping music and impromptu skatepark set up at Orange and Crown gave the first signal that something was changing on that Ninth Square corner — as a recently closed visual arts gallery sold off frames, chairs, televisions, and other goods from its now ex-home.
by | Jun 20, 2023 10:18 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos
Arms Like Roses
Mondays have a reputation for being a difficult day to enjoy anything, but this Monday at Cafe Nine you could get a heavy dose of pulse-pounding music to reenergize you for the week ahead. The three bands that made that happen last night were New Haven’s own Arms Like Roses and two Boston-based acts, Women in Peril and Cameron Lane.
by | May 26, 2023 8:17 am | Comments (0)
Brian Slattery Photos
Midnight Psychic.
Unapologetically pounding drum machines. Guitars and basses suffused with enough effects to meld with the keyboard washes in the background. Vocals floating in a sea of reverb. The sound of darkwave — a morose, sexy strain of music that rose out of punk and new wave in the early 1980s and has turned out to have a persistently long life — washed over Cafe Nine on Thursday night as three bands showed an eager audience how it was still done, four decades in.
by | May 22, 2023 8:51 am | Comments (0)
Mali Obomsawin.
“It’s good to be in the building where we recorded this album,” said Mali Obomsawin at the beginning of her sextet’s set at Firehouse 12 on Friday night. “Feels full circle. It’s good to be back.”
by | May 18, 2023 9:02 am | Comments (1)
Brian Slattery Photos
Halfway through the first number from the Zwelakhe-Duma Bell le Pere Quintet at Cafe Nine Wednesday night, the band already sounded like they’d be playing for hours. A first, highly energetic section of solos was winding down, and there was a brief pause in the music. As the others in the ensemble held a chord, drummer Ryan Sands stood up for a few seconds, just long enough to take off his coat, then hit the next beat without a hitch. It was a signal both that the music was getting hot, but also that the musicians were getting comfortable — as well they should.
by | May 15, 2023 8:43 am | Comments (4)
Brian Slattery photo
A people-filled, car-free Orange St. at Friday's fest.
Throngs of New Haveners descended on the Ninth Square for hours on end for the latest Night Market, an “evening bazaar” that saw people of all ages fill the streets, stalls, and shops, dance on the sidewalk, and generally pass the time outdoors together.
by | May 12, 2023 8:56 am | Comments (1)
Brian Slattery Photo
The State House Co-Owner Carlos Wells.
The closing of The State House has brought forth a wealth of emotions from the New Haven music community as it prepares for the end of the State Street venue’s five-year run as a Ninth Square powerhouse of productions, showcasing everything from heavy metal multiple band bills and R&B jam sessions to sequin-studded cabarets, puppet theater, and DJ-driven dance parties. With the last show currently scheduled for May 28, co-owner Carlos Wells hopes to concentrate on the next two weeks of shows that will take the venue to its end in a celebratory fashion.
by | May 10, 2023 1:22 pm | Comments (2)
Laura Glesby Photo
Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, choosing a carton of shitake mushrooms at the left, with Lorri Xu.
Browsing the vibrant vegetables inside Million Asian Market, Mayor Justin Elicker selected a bright purple eggplant and turned to the store’s co-owner, Lorri Xu.
He said in Mandarin that he wanted to make yuxiang qiezi, a garlicky eggplant dish that became his favorite meal when he lived in Taiwain. Xu advised him on the amount of Thai basil he would need — not too much — and retrieved an aromatic bag of the herb, which Elicker was happy to purchase.
Continue reading ‘1 Eggplant, A Sprig Of Basil, & 14 Years Of Small Biz Success’
by | May 8, 2023 8:35 am | Comments (0)
Karen Ponzio Photos.
Anonymous Inc.
On Friday night under a full moon the New Haven-based record label Fake Four, Inc. brought a four-act bill to the State House built on friendships and a familial music community that also whipped the crowd into a frenzy.
Indigaux, Chris Conde, Myles Bullen, and the return of Ceschi and Anonymous Inc. was a homecoming of sorts, as Ceschi (a.k.a. Julio Ramos) has been on tour as of late with his newest band, The Codefendants. Anonymous Inc. — featuring brothers Julio and David Ramos and Max Heath — had not played live in four years. It was also their last time playing at the State House, which plans to close at the end of the month.
by | May 4, 2023 8:42 am | Comments (6)
Carla Lia’s postcard-size piece, at first glance, seems altogether pleasant, a depiction of a girl with a heart-shaped balloon. But coming in close reveals layers of sharp humor. The picture is slipping out of the frame, which seems to be acting as a shredder to the image. Soon, it seems, girl and balloon will be in tatters. Which is where the text at the bottom comes in, feeling like a well-earned punchline: “from my cold, dead hands.”
by | Apr 20, 2023 2:44 pm | Comments (15)
Thomas Breen photo
Construction underway at 842-848 Chapel.
Shoveling ceremonial dirt for "The Archive."
One hundred and sixty-six new market-rate apartments — and at least one sauna — are en route for Chapel Street thanks to two new now-under-construction buildings slated for two long-vacant lots downtown.
by | Apr 17, 2023 1:32 pm | Comments (6)
Thomas Breen photos
Ray Shaw: No parking meters needed during Chapel construction closure.
Closed eastbound lanes on Chapel at Church.
Ray Shaw hustled out of the rain and back towards his city transit department van after turning off the parking meters on an eastbound block of Chapel Street that will be closed to car-and-foot traffic for the next 16 months to make way for the construction of 166 new downtown apartments.
Continue reading ‘Construction Boom Shutters Chapel Lanes, Sidewalk For 16 Months’